Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my website not show up in Google?

My website does very well on other search engines, like Yahoo and MSN, but it's nowhere to be found on Google.  Am I being penalised?

Firstly, it is important to understand that all the search engines develop their own algorithms, which are constantly being updated and tweaked in an attempt to improve the results they offer.  Ranking highly on Yahoo for a given phrase is no guarantee that the website will achieve the same or even similar results on other search engines.  Similarly, if a website does manage to achieve a top result for a given search on any search engine, it would be short sighted indeed to assume that it will remain highly ranked for that search term.  The changes in the algorithms can cause dramatic changes in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages).

Sites don't get banned or penalised unless something has been done in an attempt to deceive or manipulate the natural search results.  Typical attempts at deception include hiding content on the page and/or keyword stuffing, or attempts to artificially inflate link popularity.  Rest assured, if you don't make any attempt to deceive the search engines, or fool them into giving you a higher rank for a given phrase, then you have no need to worry about penalties.

Given the constantly shifting algorithms, and constant influx of new and updated page content on other sites, the best advice is to optimise your site for lots of related phrases.  This improves the sites chances of ranking highly for a selection of search terms, not just one.  Also, the search engines will respond favourably to seeing lots of related phrases and terms.  Any quality content page that discusses a subject will include a good selection of terms related to that subject.  For example, if Google is attempting to determine the subject of one of your content pages, it will be better able to do so if it detects a selection of common phrases that are frequently used when talking about that subject.

This principle is commonly referred to as either Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), or Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).

Comments Feed

There's often no substitute for experience.
Let our experienced experts handle everything for you, and answer all your questions.  Take a moment to discover our service offerings:
» search engine optimisation    » search engine submission    » website design.

Would you like us to link to your website?
If you leave a comment on this page, a link to your website is automatically created on the page.   ( all comments are moderated prior publication )

Comments »

Debra Zavaleta said,
November 14, 2009 @  9:56 PM
I liked the information at your site. I am developing several websites and have been trying to figure out what is the best way to Search Engine Optimization. SEO can be very confusing and after reading your site left me a little more informed. Thanks
Mark McNeece said,
November 15, 2009 @  10:51 AM
Thanks Debra!

It's true, there's so much information out there on SEO, it can become confusing. The truth though, is that it's all really quite simple, and fairly obvious stuff.

Best of luck with your sites!
Mitchell Causey said,
June 14, 2010 @  10:00 PM
I get the fact that yahoo and bing are different than google, but I still don't know how get indexed in the search listings on google without using quotation marks (we are indexed if you use quotation marks!)... anyone have a guess? Thanks!
Mark McNeece said,
June 14, 2010 @  11:50 PM
Hi Mitchell

Your site has been indexed by Google. It shows 68 pages indexed to be specific. You can check this using the "site:" directive. ie. In a google search box, type:
site:inspirerealestate.com

It might not be ranking very well, but it's definitely indexed.
Retha Weir said,
July 10, 2010 @  2:56 PM
I have a similar problem, I created a website about two weeks ago but can only find it on the web by typing in the URL. I have used the method above to try and see if it has been indexed, but can not find it their either. How do I get my site indexed? I have listed many keywords as meta tags and have started to submit my site to some of the search engines but still can not find my site. www.completenvironmental.co.za Thanks
Mark McNeece said,
July 10, 2010 @  5:21 PM
Hi Retha

I've checked your site, which I see is a Joomla based site. You might want to improve your home page title which is currently just "Home", and the same for the other pages too.

You also have some redundant meta tags there, such as the robots tag. You don't need to use this if you want the page indexed and for the bots to follow links on the page.

As for why it's not been indexed yet, I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be. If it's a very new site, just about the only thing that would help it to get indexed a little faster is if there were links to the site from other sites on the web. The hope would be that Google would follow the links from the other sites and discover your site. This is Google's preferred method of finding and indexing new sites.

Even if you do nothing, you should find that it is indexed within the next 2 - 4 weeks maximum, which is about as long as it can take to happen.

Hang in there!
John Bona said,
December 18, 2010 @  11:43 AM
I have a website but can only find it on the web by typing in the URL. I have used the method above to try and see if it has been indexed, but can not find it. How do I get my site out there? where do I listed keywords?
Thanks.
Henry Armitage said,
March 04, 2011 @  7:07 PM
I love it when a post on SEO is as informative as this. Thank you so much. :)
Victor Fama said,
March 09, 2011 @  10:11 PM
Hi, so my site, bestrefrigeratorreviews.net, was climbing steadily in the Serps, then disappeared yesterday. I run RankChecker, and it's not in Google at all. Not on page 1, page 10, or any page at all-it's blank. I checked Google analytics, and it shows I've gotten 0 visits since I put it up-a big flat line. So I knew something was wrong, and yes, I never installed the analytics code. Do you think this is the problem? What else could make a site completely disappear? The site is still indexed...
fani vogiatzi said,
March 17, 2011 @  10:09 AM
at least l managed to see that my site has been indexed, so l guess its a question of improving ranking
Abhi Chhawcharia said,
April 13, 2011 @  1:50 AM
Hi, My friend created a website today and we are not able to find it on google search. I am not able to find it in google by even searching for the complete URL. But I can open the website by the URL in browser. Also the site does not have much information on it yet, just a small contact us box. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Abhi
Mark McNeece said,
April 13, 2011 @  9:41 AM
Hi Abhi

If the site is very new, you could try using the tool at www.google.com/addurl.

Google will likely pick your site up in time, but it will happen faster if there are links to your site from other websites.

- Mark
Abhi Chhawcharia said,
April 14, 2011 @  12:06 AM
Hi Mark, Thanks for the prompt reply. I had already added the website the above URL and still my website does not show up in google. Not even when I paste the URL of my website in google. Right now my website is still complete and has just a small form to contact me. Also does the crawl of the website in the googles index search depends on the traffic that my website it getting, cause as of now its just me thats visiting the website. Thanks for all the information Mark, Abhi
Mark McNeece said,
April 14, 2011 @  12:37 AM
Hi Abhi

The thing to remember about Google is that it's a crawler based search engine. That means it's preferred method of finfing new content & pages is by following links to those pages. If you're site is brand new or has no inbound links, it can take longer for Google to find and index it.

I don't think you have anything to worry about if it's a brand new site. Just be extra patient.

- Mark
sophia grant said,
May 09, 2011 @  7:52 PM
Hello,

I created my Blog about 2 weeks ago and it is still not indexed, hence reason for no traffic! Can you help please? I have added the relevant metatags. The site is: www.dresses-with-sleeves.co.uk.

Thank you.
Mark McNeece said,
May 09, 2011 @  11:28 PM
Hi Sophia

2 things about your site are slightly different from the norm.

The first thing I notice is that your site is declared as HTML 5. I would assume this is no problem at all for Google, but I can't be certain as it's a Beta document type.

The other thing I notice is that your site at the .co.uk address is just a frameset that loads your content from a .com address. That's not so good. It would be better to have the .co.uk address use a 301 redirect to the true address to avoid any canonical URL issues. That said, Google won't be able to index your site at the .co.uk address in the normal way, and it's not the address you should use to market your site as it stands, because that's not where your site resides.

I also notice that your home page title and description are extremely poor. The title is just the web address, and the description is the same without the hyphens. There's no real description at all of what a user will find on your home page. I didn't check, but I assume that will be the same throughout your site?

I'm sorry if any of this appears confusing. I can see you've spent a great deal of time and effort on this site. Please feel free to call me directly during office hours and I'll happily explain and walk you through the issues I found.

Best,
Mark McNeece.
Sigit Sugiharto said,
June 03, 2011 @  4:10 PM
I need an explanation about the url of my website.
Mark McNeece said,
June 03, 2011 @  4:39 PM
Hi Sigit,

Your website has been well indexed by Google. I'm not familiar with your language, but it looks like most of your pages have a very similar meta description. Each page should have a unique Title as well as a unique Meta Description that describes what a user will find on that page if he visits it.

Do you have any specific problems or questions?

Regards
Mark
Erica Bethray said,
August 26, 2011 @  8:00 PM
Hi, I have a problem being found on google, yahoo and bing. All 3 of which i have given my details too. Even when i put the Http in nothing comes up. Is there anything i can do to improve being found? Thank you for your help

Erica
Mark McNeece said,
August 26, 2011 @  8:41 PM
Hello Erica

I've had a quick look at your site. It looks like you've built your site using the Mr Site system. Is that right?

The Mr Site system is potentially fine, although not great for SEO purposes. There's a few things about your site that would be improved by an SEO service, like page titles, meta descriptions, keywords, etc... however, I suspect your site is just very new. When did it launch? Within the last 6 weeks? If that's the case, you need to be patient and wait, or speed it along by getting some inbound links to your site.

I did also notice something wrong in your HTML source, but it's not something that would prevent your site from being indexed. You have a 1 pixel image tied to a Mr Site hit counter mechanism that actually falls outside of your closing HTML tag. Whilst this shouldn't prevent the site from being indexed, it will be flagged as a poorly constructed site and almost guarantee your site gets hit by the sandboxed effect.

Otherwise, you're site looks nice, for a budget site.

Feel free to give me a call (details on contact page) if you would like to have a quick chat about your site.

Regards
Mark
brendan moore said,
November 11, 2011 @  12:38 AM
I have made a quick website for my nephew and put it on google and it flashed upp for a few days and climbed to 2nd position and the totaly dissapeared, i have waited now 6 months and still the same ?? Can you have a look and try and point me in the right direction because it has totally lost me, i know a little bit about website but consider myself a novice
Mark McNeece said,
November 11, 2011 @  9:38 AM
Hi Brendan

Google often favours new sites / pages for short time when they are just launched.

I'm not sure what you would like to hear to be honest? There's a number of things about the site that are not quite right. You have canonical URL issues (there's more than 1 URL for your home page); I found an tag in your home page source but cannot find the text on the page - is it cloaked? How many back links does the site have?

Sorry I can't give you just 1 specific answer. It rarely works that way. To do well on Google there's a number of things you need to do correctly. Plus of course, how well your site ranks will depend on not just the content on your site, but the competition too and a number of off-page factors.

Regards
Mark
brendan moore said,
November 14, 2011 @  2:12 AM
Hi Mark

Yes i googled what you meant (canonical URL issues) you see i made the site with webeden and they recently changed there consul and ive been right through it and there used to be a section where you could oint your domain name to a choice of 3 ....http://address or http://www. and another way but i cant get the choices up anymore ?? how would i solve that problem ??

Thanks
Mark McNeece said,
November 14, 2011 @  12:28 PM
Hi Brendan

Sorry, I'm not familiar with "webeden". So I checked out their site and support system. It doesn't look like there is any mechanism for addressing canonical URL issues. In fact, I noticed they actually gave instructions on creating multiple DNS 'A' records which will actually cause part of the problem.

I suspect your not going to be in a position to do anything about the problem, but webeden themselves are the people you need to talk to about it. I would be interested to know how you get on though?

Best
Mark
brendan moore said,
November 16, 2011 @  11:08 AM
Just to get back to you on this problem i think ive sorted it, ive done what it says, i googled the problem, so im gona paste it below for anyone else to see

This is called a ‘canonical issue’, and creates a problem for search engines. And if search engines have a problem with you then they’re less likely to rank your website highly.

The problem is this.

Because your homepage exists on two different URLs, Google isn’t sure which is your ‘main’ homepage. Therefore, when deciding where to rank your website in the Search Engine Results Page, it dithers between the two, and ranks both – but very low down.

The links on your website serve as pointers to direct search engines around your website. The page with the most links pointing to it is usually the homepage. But if your homepage is basically split into two different places, half the links will probably point to one, and the rest to the other. This means that ‘power’ of those links is split in two – effectively halved.

There is a solution to this problem (that you didn’t know you had!)

What you need to to is to designate 1 version of your homepage as the ‘main’ one, and automatically point all the link power from the other to the main one.

In order to do this you need to buy a domain name, or use the domain you’ve already registered. When setting up your domain name to be your main website address (IE getting rid of the ‘webeden.co.uk’ bit) you go to:

Admin –> Site addresses –>Add site address

The dialogue box looks like this:


Enter your domain name here as your site address. BUT make sure you enter it both WITH and WITHOUT the ‘www’ on two separate lines. Then all you need to do is designate one version – the WWW one – as your main ‘preferred’ site address.

Once this is done, anyone and any search engine trying to get on your website by typing your domain name with the ‘WWW’ will automatically be forwarded to the version with the ‘WWW’

And thats it.

((THERE WAS A PICTURE WITH THIS BUT IT WOULDNT LET ME PASTE IT IN )) HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE OUT THERE
Daniel Yeo said,
December 13, 2011 @  3:31 AM
Hi I need help badly! I have been trying to understand this SEO thing and tried re-writing my web, using some key words, etc. The problem: I want search engine (esp google and yahoo) to be able to pick up query on "Physics Tuition" but it is not doing so. Other words are OK, such as "H2 Physics", "JC physics Tuition" and so on. Can someone help, please. Thanks.
Daniel Yeo said,
December 13, 2011 @  3:33 AM
Sorry, in my last post, I forgot to let everyone know that my website is HTTP://H2PHYSICS.BLOGSPOT.COM Very much appreciate it if anyone can help...
Mark McNeece said,
December 13, 2011 @  10:35 AM
Hi Daniel

A blog site is subtly different from an ordinary website (brochure type website) in the way information and content is presented.

I think you would be better served with a brochure style website.

However, I checked to see how often your key phrase appears on your home page. It's just 6 times. With all the content you have on your home page, that means your key phrase isn't really standing out as being the main focus of the page. As I said though, as it's a blog site, I think you'll struggle to achieve the right level of keyword density.

It might help a little to mention it in your meta description though, which is currently blank.

All the best,
Mark

« Previous   |     |   Add Comment

loading
click to reveal the comments form

Comments

We greatly encourage registered users to leave any related comments they might have about this topic.

Benefits of Registration

A major advantage of registration is that you'll never have to enter your details again.  We will pre-populate all forms for you including contact forms, comments, and even payment forms.

Registration also enables us to give you superior levels of service and support, and allows you to fully interact with our web site including leaving comments on our news articles and FAQ's.

  • If you're a registered user, please login »
  • Alternatively, please take 60 seconds to register »

 

comment received stamp

Your Comments Have Been Received

Many thanks, Bob!

Check back soon for comments about your comments!

Why does my website not show up in Google? - FAQ and Answer